In June 2025, CPD held a series of three roundtables that brought together leaders in government, industry bodies, unions and civil society to discuss how Australia can accelerate its renewable energy infrastructure deployment to meet our targets and national objectives. The first high-level roundtable was followed by two deep dives on the issue of workforce and planning approvals. These events accompany the release of our report, Warp Speed: Accelerating renewable energy infrastructure deployment.
In the main roundtable discussion, there was a broad sense of agreement that while we are seeing early wins, we are falling short of energy and climate targets, and the energy transition is moving too slowly for Australia to maximise the benefits.
In relation to the areas of reform proposed, the discussions emphasised the need for minimising mixed signals in policy settings to industry, and a coherent narrative around transition that builds trust and counters misinformation.
Participants also brought different perspectives to the issue of social license. It is a meta issue that shows up in different parts of the system – such as in higher than expected objections to projects which creates congestion in the approvals process. At the same time, compared to visual impacts or community amenity, stakeholders flagged that any critical failure of energy system stability would raise significant public objection.
There is no silver bullet, so coordinated action is needed across many policy domains. Participants also regarded the need for stronger accountability and leadership in Australia’s decentralised, federated system.
A widely recognised challenge is that electrical trades are a key talent pool for multiple competing sectors, not just clean energy. Participants in CPD’s energy workforce deep-dive noted it is more helpful to focus on growing the necessary skills across the economy, rather than classifying and focussing on specific “clean economy” jobs.
To address workforce shortages, there is an opportunity for other growth sectors – such as data centres – to train more apprentices and effectively cross-subsidise workforce development for smaller employers.
The energy sector labour market will have peaks and troughs that can be smoothed out with labour mobility, such as harmonised licensing across jurisdictions. There’s also a need to incentivise a localised workforce with local training hubs, as talent is often drawn to urban areas to train and once there, don’t always return to work in regions.
The discussions around planning approvals raised the importance of clear and specific information requirements for a DA approval as upfront as possible to minimise requests for information (RFI). There are many environmental assessments that come through, even with hundreds of pages, that are not of high quality; meanwhile the proponents report frustration at open-ended guidance. The common feedback we heard was that of a mismatch of expectations.
To navigate a complex planning environment, we are seeing the rise of coordinator-general roles across Australia to streamline approvals. While this is an important addition, it needs to be adequately resourced along with the in-house specialists on technical issues.
There was also significant interest in the sector around a regional approach to environmental assessments. This comes with a growing importance to deepen governments and proponents’ understanding of biodiversity in each region, and a sense that governments must take a leading role in bioregional assessments.
Environmental assessments are typically copyrighted after they are publicly exhibited, and this makes it hard for developers to understand and improve upon best practice. Having one database, rather than many, would make a difference – the Environment Information Australia (EIA) being a good candidate.
In streamlining and reducing the timeframe for planning approvals, governments must ultimately balance this with their regulatory and environmental responsibilities and maintain social license.
